Subscribe

Subscribe

Color of Money: Quotes that help you put your money where your mouth is

Michelle Singletary
on Dec 24, 2017

WASHINGTON -- In 2004, my daughter, who was 9 at the time, gave me a Christmas present that I shall treasure for the rest of my life.

Olivia created "Yo Mamma: Sayings from My Momma," a book of all the things I would repeat to her and her siblings. As you might imagine, most of the sayings were about money.

Here are two of my favorite quotes that made it into the book.

-- "Do you have a job?" (I started saying this as soon as the kids started talking and asking for stuff.)

-- "Do you have money to pay for that?" (A standard question when she tried to put something in the shopping cart.)

I smile every time I pull her book from my bookshelf.

--Sponsored Video--

So, with Olivia's book in mind, I thought I'd pull five of my quotes over the past year that resonated with readers.

-- "If debt were a person, I'd slap it." I said this in a column about good debt versus bad debt. I hate all debt. As I wrote, I know my views are extreme, almost un-American, in a nation that relies so heavily personally and politically on borrowing. But when it comes to money, what you tell yourself matters. When we use positive adjectives to describe debt, we minimize the financial bondage it creates.

-- "Empathy does not equal endorsement." In April, I recommended for the Color of Money Book Club an essay by novelist and former Washington Post book critic William McPherson. McPherson died this past spring and I thought the essay "Falling" (You can read it at http://bit.ly/Falling_essay) was a powerful look at how this once privileged person ended up poor because of a series of bad decisions.

"Life is about choices," one reader wrote. "One does not 'fall into poverty.' One walks into it with open arms."

Share

More The Color of Money

WASHINGTON -- Every Thursday, I spend an hour taking reader questions live online, and I love the opportunity to see what's concerning people. There are the typical questions about retirement or credit, but people also ...Read More